repress a laugh at the amazed face of the cloak-room attendant, and
moving to where his hansom awaited him; “give up those papers here and
now like a good fellow, and save me a great deal of time and worry. If
Harris doesn’t see them first thing to-morrow it means a postponement,
and we don’t want that.”
“There is need for neither,” said Northcote, buttoning up his
threadbare overcoat. “But, ye gods and little fishes! what is the name
for the total blindness, the pathetic obtuseness, which has eclipsed
the faculties of this connoisseur, this expert? Here is one who has
been angling for years for a real authentic fish from the sea, yet when
one plumps into his net, being accustomed to nothing but the sight of
minnows, he doesn’t even guess at his travaille.”
By this time the solicitor had fled precipitately through the vestibule
of the restaurant, and stood in the portico awaiting his hansom.
X
THE RIDE TO NORBITON
As he was entering the vehicle Northcote came to his side.
“Good night,” said Mr. Whitcomb. “In the morning, perhaps, when you see
things a bit clearer you will think better of this. In fact I am sure
of it; and I hope you will not forget to send round the brief.”
Before he could close the door of the hansom, the young man had joined
him in its interior.
“I hope you don’t mind my coming with you,” he said, entirely at his
ease. “This matter is far too momentous for all concerned to be left in
the unsatisfactory stage at which it has now arrived.”
“This fellow is the devil,” muttered the solicitor, suppressing a groan.
“Where, sir?” said the cabman through the hole in the roof.
“Norbiton.”
“Norbiton! Not to-night, sir; the ’oss is tired.”
“Take me to Norbiton,” said the solicitor sharply, “and never mind
about your horse.”
“Very sorry, guv’nor--”
“Well, if you can afford to lose a sovereign--”
The cabman’s head disappeared immediately, and the horse started on its
journey at a good round pace.
“These cabmen are the greatest robbers in Europe,” said the solicitor,
settling himself in his corner. “They are a disgrace to London. One
would like to see them taken over by the state.”
Although Mr. Whitcomb was ruffled by his companion’s strange
pertinacity, his philosophic habit soon came to his aid.
“Have a weed?” he said, offering his cigar-case.
By the time each had lighted a cigar and ensconced himself in a measure
of comfort in a corner of the vehicle, the irritation of the one and
the aggressive tenacity of the other had been somewhat allayed.
“There are several points that still remain dark to me,” said
Northcote, “in this odd affair. Having come in a moment of high
inspiration to the attic of the obscure, having discovered its occupant
to be of an uncommon faculty, having entrusted him with your business,
all of a sudden, because of a singular revelation of his talent, you
discard him and have recourse to an abject mediocrity.”
“You are certainly a queer fellow,” said the solicitor, amused by
this piece of egotism. “A most unconventional fellow--quite the most
unconventional fellow I have ever met.”
“Ah, there is my offence,” said the young man; “I have outraged the
gods, I have disregarded the proprieties. Yet I would ask you, are not
all conventions for the common vulgar? Are not nature’s most authentic
specimens, those pioneers in every sphere of mundane activity who add
the little more that means so much, are not these to walk about the
earth just as nature fashioned them?”
“I am pleased to say,” said Mr. Whitcomb, emitting a soft purr of
contentment, “I am a common lawyer. The whys and wherefores are not my
province; I take things as they are.”
“That does not prevent all your instincts being up in arms when you
encounter the unusual. How curious it is that the most deadly sin
in the eyes of the average person is that shameless egotism which
transacts the real business of the world.”
“If there were no rules to which one had to conform,” said the
solicitor, “there would be no living in the world. Conventions to my
mind are highly necessary. Of course every man has a perfect right to
consider himself a tremendous fellow, but that is no reason why he
should say as much to his neighbor. If he does, his neighbor will want
to refute it.”
“And if he should throw down his gage, and prove to his neighbor in a
perfectly logical and scientific manner that he is a tremendous fellow,
his neighbor will not be content with wanting to refute him; his
neighbor will want to shoot him, or hang him, or burn him, or crucify
him, and it is long odds that his neighbor will succeed in so doing.”
“I am afraid I don’t follow you.”
“I am speaking of the fate that awaited upon the majority of the
tremendous fellows whom we discover in the pages of history; the
founders of the religions, the saints, the heroes, the discoverers, the
makers of the philosophical systems.”
“One suspects,” said the solicitor, “it was because they made the world
so uncomfortable while they were living in it.”
“I agree. But what a world we should have if they had not.”
“It is not at all clear to my mind,” said the solicitor, “that in the
long run these fellows of whom you are speaking have not done more harm
to the world than they have done good. Not only did their abnormal
egotisms run am k during their own lives, but after their deaths, which
as you suggest were often brutal and unnecessary, they continued in the
guise of saints and martyrs, and inspired teachers to wreak iconoclasm
and discomfort upon mankind.”
“One can readily believe,” said the young man, “that you, sir, in your
capacity of a member of the comfortable classes, to which by fortune
and education you belong, would fetter the march of ideas by every
means in your power.”
“Yes,” said the solicitor, drawing peacefully at his cigar; “few things
are more distasteful to me personally than ideas. Particularly those
lawless ones which proceed from ill-regulated and ill-balanced natures.
It seems to me that they are responsible for nine-tenths of the misery
that is in the world.”
“Do I take it that, in your opinion, so far from these so-called ‘great
men’ of whom we are speaking meriting esteem from their fellows, their
doctrines as well as their persons should be pursued with the fire and
the sword; and that means should be adopted to exterminate the growth
of these ‘great’ ones from the comfortable republic which is inhabited
by the average person?”
“I would suggest it. I have given little thought to this subject, but
I cannot think of a single historical personage of whom I do not
consider that in the long run mankind would have gained immeasurably
had he never been born into its midst.”
“This is extreme doctrine,” said Northcote; “and may I pay you the
compliment, sir, of saying that I find you to be one of a greater
courage than I had suspected.”
“All the so-called ‘greatness’ one finds enshrined in history,” the
solicitor continued, “proceeds from an abnormal egotism; and I think
even a perfectly commonplace mind such as my own, which is content
with the obvious, has only to take a most superficial look around to
see that the abnormal is the only evil against which mankind has to
contend.”
“Necessarily,” said Northcote, “since the self-consciousness of matter
is the ugliest phenomenon known to natural law. But to follow the line
of your reasoning, the abnormal person, whatever the sphere of his
activity, is invariably the enemy of his kind?”
“That is my suggestion; the suggestion of an average mind that is
content to rest on the plane of matter-of-fact common sense.”
“You would say that it would have been better for mankind had the poet
Shakespeare never been given to it?”
“Unquestionably. In my view, all poetry, even in what we are pleased
to call a sublime and concentrated form, is a direct emanation of
morbid sensibility. It stimulates those already sufficiently irritable
faculties of the mind which call for a never-ceasing vigilance to hold
in check. Poetry is the chief enemy against which rational common
sense has to contend.”
“Then in your view the greatest enemy of the human race of which
history has taken cognizance is Jesus Christ?”
“I will not say the greatest; but He shares the opprobrium that
attaches to His class. It was that type of abnormalism which developed
the religious sense in man; and any sense more calculated to provoke
infinite misery, any sense more completely out of harmony with the
facts of existence, one cannot conceive.”
“In a word, excess of any kind is repugnant to the average person?”
“One would say so; mainly, I think, because it extorts such heavy toll
of all who are brought in contact with it.”
“Then elevation of feeling, profundity of thought, subtlety of insight,
austerity of morals, heroism, beauty, in short, the superlative in any
guise whatever, should be eliminated from the republic of the average
sensual person?”
“If the average sensual person could contrive a republic for himself,
that would be its first decree.”
“Hence his hostility to those abnormal egotisms which are known as
‘greatness’?”
“As far as the average person can see, that appears to go down to the
root of the matter.”
“Well, sir,” said the young advocate, “permit me to take a slight
parable out of my own experience to refute this supposition.”
“Pray do so.”
The advocate selected as a preliminary a second cigar from the case of
the solicitor, and resettled himself in comfort in the corner of the
vehicle.
“All my life,” said Northcote, “from the farthest day to which my
memory goes back, I have been persecuted with the consciousness of my
own importance. In all my dealings with others, in the daily outlook
upon my surroundings, not only have I been unable to detach myself
from my own private entity, but I have also been obsessed with the
knowledge that that entity was so much more powerful than any with
which it happened to come in contact. As you will believe, a feeling of
that kind spelt serious inconvenience to its possessor. At my private
school I was the recipient of many cuffs in my capacity of a shy,
nervous, and intensely self-centred child who detested games. It grew
to be a special function of my youthful companions, and also that of
every self-respecting master, to ‘knock the nonsense out of Northcote.’
However, so far from knocking it out, these disinterested efforts
appeared to knock it farther in. And when in the fulness of time I
ascended to the ampler region of a public school, my sufferings were
materially increased. I was shunned, I was tormented, an opprobrious
name was fastened upon me; and had not the fire which burned so
intensely at the centre of myself kept me warm in spirit, life would
have become intolerable.
“It was a consciousness of personal power haunting me day and night
which caused me to scorn the gods of the little world in which I found
myself, and to disregard the petty conventions which mean so much
in every phase of human life. Accordingly I was marked out as an
object of hatred and ridicule. However, as years went on, and I came
to be endowed with the somewhat unusual physical frame which you may
have observed I possess, I determined in a somewhat cynical spirit
of revenge to devote myself to one of those stupid and unmeaning
exercises, my contempt for which was one of the most potent causes of
my unpopularity. Never before had I condescended to approach one of
the usual school ‘games,’ other than in a spirit of levity; but when
I awoke to the discovery that nature had somewhat ironically endowed
me with a power of muscle, a suppleness of limb, and a bulk of inches
which would in themselves make me the envy of every athlete in the
school, I determined to turn them to account. It was in no spirit of
open competition with those whom I despised that I resolved to become
the most accomplished football-player who had ever appeared in the
school. It was my somewhat curious method of avenging all the insults,
all the barbarous forms of injustice, that had been wreaked upon me. I
might have requited my assailants in other ways, but I was too proud
to employ the methods of those whom I felt to be my mental, physical,
and moral inferiors. Therefore I gave myself up to this mechanical
exercise, and an abnormal concentration of will-power which I have
always possessed, in conjunction with remarkable physical gifts, had
the result for which I had prayed.
“When this new prowess was first bruited abroad it was received with
derision. But in spite of an organized public opinion which in every
walk of life assails the unconventional, this ability became a source
of distress to the expert. ‘It comes to this,’ said the captain of the
School Fifteen, after a House cup-tie in which dismay had been carried
into the camp of the opposition, ‘if this sort of thing goes on, we
shall have to think about playing “Cad” Northcote for the School.’ The
shouts of derision with which this prophecy was received are still in
my ears. However ‘this sort of thing’ continued to go on, and sure
enough, to the amazement of men and gods, the day dawned on which ‘Cad’
Northcote did play for the School. He dominated the scene of action
in every game in which he took part; but such was the strength of
public opinion that the ruling powers withheld his ‘cap’ until the very
last moment, the eve of the chief game of the year. It was the match
against our great school rivals, a neighboring seminary, of which,
sir, I discern by certain unfortunate tricks of manner that you are an
alumnus.”
“Never mind about that,” said the solicitor; “get on with your story.
It is enormously interesting. Did you play against us in the great
match?”
“Yes, I played against you in the great match. The ‘fez’ of the School
Fifteen, which should have been mine weeks before, was duly presented
to me on the eve of ‘Waterloo,’ for although it was a dreadful crime to
be ‘unpopular,’ it was yet highly necessary to ‘take on’ the French.
And I recall now with some amusement the manner in which I contrived
to flout the _amour propre_ of the venerable institution into whose
service I was pressed. Instead of turning out in the garish colors with
which I had been honored at the eleventh hour, I appeared upon the
scene in a costume of the most immaculate whiteness. As soon as the
captain beheld this apparition on the field of play, he came to me and
said insolently: ‘Northcote, what do you mean by getting yourself up
like this? Go back at once and put on the School colors.’ I rejoined:
‘I play for the School in my own colors on my own terms. I would like
you to understand that if I am with you, I am not of you.’ There was
a hurried consultation among my fourteen fellow players, and although
their sense of outrage was enormous, that was neither the time nor the
place to indulge it.
“The French were ‘taken on’ as they had never been ‘taken on’ before.
But the debacle was the work of one man. Such a game as was played on
that occasion by ‘Cad’ Northcote was never seen before or afterwards.
According to tradition, which to this day invests his pious memory,
he spent half his time in crossing the line of his adversaries, and
the other half in standing the opposing three-quarters on their heads.
He felt himself to be equipped for the part of the man of destiny. I
believe the rout of our hereditary rivals on that occasion came near to
approaching three figures.”
“You don’t mean to say,” exclaimed the solicitor, “that you are the
great Northcote, the fellow who led the English pack while he was still
at school?”
“No less.”
“Why, then I saw you play at the Rectory Field sometime in the
’nineties. I remember you had those damned Welshmen over the line
three times in the first five minutes. You pushed them all over the
place.”
“Yes, we pushed them all over the place. You saw me at the summit of
my fame. And I am now coming to the point of my parable. From those
days of my inordinate success, which conferred not only lustre upon
myself, but upon my school and all who were associated with me, I
became not only a hero, but a figure of legend. The opprobrious title
‘Cad’ Northcote was dropped as completely as though it had never been.
My lightest opinion was treasured, and heaven only can tell us how
many they were on every point under the sun. I became a dictator where
formerly I had suffered infinite misery and persecution. By a display
of personal force criticism was laid low; yet, sir, according to this
theory of yours, it must have been inimical to all who came within its
sphere of influence.”
“I would say so certainly; demoralizing alike to its possessor, and to
those who despised it in its growth and abased themselves before it in
its flower.”
“Yet was it not with bated breath that you inquired whether I was the
‘great’ Northcote?”
“Pray do not overlook the fact, my dear fellow, that however much the
average sensual mind may deplore the false gods before which it kneels,
it has not the power to deliver itself from their thrall. This passion
to ‘excel’ is a flaw inherent in the race.”
“It is at least pleasant to discover,” said Northcote, “that the
average sensual mind is unable to banish the sentiment of admiration
from its republic.”
“If it could,” said the solicitor, “there would be an end of these
abnormal egotisms of which we have been speaking.”
“I do not agree,” said Northcote. “It is not a thirst for admiration
from which they spring, but a thirst for power. And it is an
uncomfortable reflection for those who belong to your republic that
the world has been so arranged that mere power will always have its
devotees. How lamentably your own practice breaks down before your
theory. You have reverence for me as a player of football, and Tobin’s
powers as an advocate fill you with enthusiasm.”
“True; and it is men like Tobin and yourself who forbid any
reconciliation between theory and practice. A phenomenon is always
inimical to the society in which it appears. It may stand forth as
memorable and fascinating as you please, but it does so at the expense
of balance, law, and reason. Your presence in the football match ruined
the game as a game, just as I have observed that the presence of Tobin
in a case has been disastrous to the cause of justice.”
“Nevertheless, you invoke the aid of Tobin on every possible occasion.”
“I do.”
“Upon what pretext, may I ask, since you deplore his gifts so deeply?”
“The answer is simple. To whatever extent I may deplore the condition
of things into which, through no fault of my own, I have been
projected, beyond everything I am of a comfortable and conforming
disposition. Therefore I make my subscription to the things that are. I
have none of the reformer’s zeal; and it is one of the things for which
I am thankful.”
At this stage of the conversation the voice of the cabman was heard
from the roof.
“We’re in Norbiton, sir. Which house?”
“Straight on to the end of the road,” said Mr. Whitcomb; “then first to
the right, second to the left, and it is the first house you come to at
the corner of Avenue Road.”
“How quickly we’ve come,” said Northcote. “One would not have thought
it possible to cover the distance in this time; with a tired horse,
too.”
“The sound of your own voice may have been as agreeable to you,” said
the solicitor, “as it has been to me. I confess it has passed the time
very well.”
Northcote deduced from the more indulgent air of his companion that
this imperious personality of his, of whose possession he was so
conscious and upon which he built so much, had not been without
an effect. He was thinking of the victory that he felt sure would
crown his tenacity, when the hansom drew up at the gate of a very
comfortable-looking suburban residence. It was girt with a high stone
wall, and stood in a pleasant plot of ground amid tall trees.
As they got out of the hansom, the solicitor, after searching his
pockets in leisurely fashion, collected four shillings and a sixpence
and handed them up to the cabman on his perch.
“Wot’s this ’ere?” said the cabman gruffly. “This ain’t no use ter me,
guv’nor. Yer promised me a quid.”
“In one’s dealings with the criminal classes,” said the solicitor, “one
finds that the only method of self-protection is the use of their own
weapons.”
“Yer promised me a quid, guv’nor,” said the cabman, who was too excited
to follow the course of this reasoning.
“May I say,” rejoined the solicitor, with great suavity, “that a
promise is considered to be a thing of no particular value among the
members of the criminal classes.”
“Criminal classes! Wot!” cried the cabman, in a gust of fury. “Breaks
yer promises and calls yerself a toff! Not a-going to part with that
quid. Well, guv’nor, we’ll just see abaht it.”
Emitting a string of foul expressions, the cabman hopped down from his
perch.
“Call yerself a toff? Give me that quid or I’ll knock out yer ---- eye.”
“Try,” said the solicitor, with a coolness that his companion felt to
be inimitable.
Inflamed a little by drink as well as by a sense of injury, the cabman
prepared to exact a summary vengeance. Breathing slaughter he came at
Mr. Whitcomb with his fists in the air; and that gentleman, stepping
aside coolly and nimbly, hit him with a hand ungloved for the purpose a
heavy blow in the face. The cabman dropped like a log in the slush of
the gutter.
“A broken nose,” said Mr. Whitcomb, turning to his companion, while
they stood watching the unfortunate cabman gather himself slowly and
painfully together.
“I feel for you, cabby,” said the solicitor, to his rueful assailant,
“but I can assure you this is wholly in the public interest. Thieves
and bullies, as well as fools, have to be taught by experience.”
“Why the ’ell didn’t yer sye so?” whimpered the cabman, as he strove
in vain to stanch the blood that poured from his nose. “’Ow the ’ell
should I know yer could use ’em? I piked yer fer a toff in yer ’igh
’at and yer fur coat and yer glass eye; ’ow the ’ell should I know yer
could use ’em?”
“That is for you banditti to discover,” was the rejoinder of his fare.
“It is perhaps my chief recreation to thrash hansom cabmen in the
interests of society. I am proud to say your case is one of many.”
“Blow me tight, a prize-fighter!”
“It is not too much to say I might have aspired to that calling, if the
somewhat material nature of my ambitions had not summoned me to a more
lucrative if less honorable practice. Twenty years ago I was considered
rather useful with the gloves.”
“Not so rusty nah, guv’nor,” said the cabman, imperfectly mollified,
and stanching his nose with his sleeve. “Give us a extra bob an’ I’ll
drive to the ’orspital.”
“Here is your sovereign,” said Mr. Whitcomb. “Training and education
make one so punctilious in regard to one’s word, although common sense
assures one that like the majority of your class you are a rogue, a
liar, and a bully; in a word, a common pirate. Here is your money; and
have the goodness to take yourself off as reticently as you can.”
There was not a more astonished Jehu amid the ranks of his London
brethren than this unfortunate specimen, as he climbed into the seat he
had left so injudiciously. Bestowing a succession of brutal strokes of
the whip upon his even more unfortunate horse, he was lost immediately
in the sleet and darkness of the morning, leaving Northcote, who was
only slightly less astonished than his bleeding and blasphemous self,
standing at the side of the solicitor against the gate of the latter’s
residence.
XI
MR. WHITCOMB’S FOIBLES
“In moments of relaxation from my studies,” said Northcote, taking his
companion by the arm, “I like to look upon myself as something of an
amateur of the human mind. I find a great fascination in the endless
nuances of the human character. Permit me to say that I have never come
across a more promising subject than is offered by your own personal
complexity. Why in the name of the marvellous did you batter that poor
devil if you had no intention of cozening him out of his money?”